Human
by Rebellwithoutacause
Summary: '"I always knew. You were such a pretty white knight. I thought for sure it was real. And it's too late to even tell Merle I'm such a moron for thinking it was real." Pain welled up inside, pressurized heat and vicious energy roaring through him so strongly that he couldn't contain it.' My interpretation of the inevitable conflict between Rick and Daryl after 'Internment.' R&R.


_**Well hello there my beloved readers! So, ever since Season 4 episode 'Indifference' I've been wanting to write a fic about the inevitable conflict that is coming between Rick and Daryl. There will be several installments to this story. Before I go any further, let me give you an upfront and fair warning. This story is very dark. If you know me, you know I do dark very well, but this is a different shade of dark. There's some stuff in here that if you're squeamish or are psychologically fragile, you want to stay away from. If you read it and get freaked out, don't say I didn't warn you. **_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own the Walking Dead, and I'm not making any money off of this. Just feeding the greed of my own Muse. (Who can be disturbed and evil, I must admit) **_

_**Oh, and if anybody is curious, the chapter titles come from the songs I was listening to while writing that helped set the toner for the chapter. **_

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How cruel was fate, that only hours ago he'd threatened to beat a man into the ground for the very same thing he was doing now. Another swallow couldn't block it out, but the burn felt good.

Daryl hadn't had a proper drink really since the CDC. Sure here and there, they'd pilfer booze, but they never really had much of a chance to enjoy it, always to caught up in running for their lives, struggling to put food in their stomachs rather than liquor, because in the end the liquor wouldn't keep them alive.

"Maybe it will tonight," he half slurred to himself. This shit he was drinking, it was probably poisonous by this point. It certainly tasted like it. The label was so degraded that it was almost impossible to tell what it was. When he'd unscrewed the dusty lid he hadn't really cared. He could smell the stinging fumes and knew that it was eighty proof or better, and that was good enough for him.

The first swallow had hurt like a fist to the gut with brass knuckles. His stomach clenched hard, rebelling at the liquid, twisting around it so hard Daryl almost tossed it back up again. But years of practice helped him hold it down, and every mouthful after that went down easier. After a while he couldn't even taste it. After a while nothing mattered except making sure he pickled his brain to stop the horrible train wreck that was destroying him from the inside out.

He'd left her. He'd left her out there, alone, to face a world that had killed men who were so much stronger and better prepared. Rick tried to tell him otherwise, but Daryl knew better. Carol was strong, sure. She was stronger than she had been before. But no one, not even Daryl himself, could survive this world alone.

"You lied…" he growled. "Rick you lied. You fucking lied to me. Lied to everyone. Merle… you were right. Big bro, you were fucking right."

He took another drink, hoping that the gulp would kill the pain roaring through him the way boiling water climbs the side of a pot. It did nothing. The fluid coating his mouth and throat and stomach burned like acid, but it couldn't stop the flush of brutal agony hitting him from every angle.

"You were right!" He all but screamed it. He spun drunkenly and hefted his arm, flinging the almost empty liquor bottle as hard as he could. It smashed against the wall of his cell and shattered into a million pieces. The momentum of his throw sent him reeling. The world tilted and twisted around his head as he staggered, his upper body and shoulder smacking into his bunk before he slithered to a pile of dirty clothes and sweat slicked limbs at the side of his bed. Dulled pain throbbed through every muscle that impacted some solid surface, but the alcohol blunted it.

"I can't…you can't…you don't…nobody has the right. You fucking lied, Rick, you lied, you took everything away!" The words were spilling off of spit slicked lips as Daryl weakly pushed himself up to his knees and then collapsed against his bed, too weak and too uncoordinated to move any further.

"You lied, Rick," Daryl whispered to himself. "You lied. You promised something…it was too good to be true. I fucking knew. I always fucking knew. You were such a pretty white knight. I thought for sure it was real. And it's too fucking late to even tell Merle I'm such a fucking moron for thinking it was real."

Pain welled up inside, pressurized heat and vicious energy roaring through him so strongly that he couldn't contain it. He felt like he was vibrating like a window pane of glass in a hurricane, so close to shattering one more twitch would send him splattering all over the cell. He gasped with the strength of it, all his inward defenses failing one by one like falling dominos in front of the onslaught of the depth of the betrayal tearing through him.

_He'd been tricked. After so long, after so much trust, so much shit that had happened, he'd been fooled. He fucking got you, Daryl. Just like Merle said he would. Merle fucking died to keep you safe with these bastards, and look at what you've got now. Nothing. No Carol, no Rick, no nothin'. Nothin' but the bottle. Even when you were a kid ya had nothin'. Momma couldn't nurse ya so ya do it yourself, but the booze is all gone and yer still thirsty. Still hurting. Ain't no one comin' to make it better. She's gone. Gone for fucking ever. You'll never find her. Go on, go run out there, go look for her, go get eaten. Go get torn to pieces. Go join her. _

He looked at the broken glass lying around him. One shard was particularly large and curved with a bastardly sharp edge. He leaned forward sluggishly and took it between his fingers, running the greasy, gritty digits over the slick surface.

_She killed 'em, Daryl. Even she ain't the person you knew. Nobody is who you thought anymore. There's no one left to impress. No one left to hide from. _

Everything…every word of it had been a lie; just a fantasy, a fairytale storybook that could be thrown away the second that it didn't serve a purpose anymore. He'd seen Rick throw all his pretty fantasies away quick enough when the time was right. He should have known that one day, Rick would destroy the sweet little lie he had been quietly building for himself. He should have known one day it would come crashing down. He should have known it the day Rick told them he'd murdered Shane.

His body bore several lifetimes worth of scars, but what nobody knew, not even Carol, was that not all of them were inflicted by others. His torso and chest, places that were easily hidden, were riddled with lines that his own trembling fingers had created. Years and years ago, so long ago it was like a nightmare that had finally faded into the back of his mind, a straight razor and his empty room were his refuge. When the pain was too much, when he thought he just couldn't do this anymore, when it wasn't worth feeling any of this shit anymore, when Merle wasn't around to buck him up, when his old man was passed out in his own vomit after breaking another of his youngest son's ribs. When Daryl knew that if he had to live with the pain deep inside one more second where no bandage could ever reach he'd lurch to his feet and run and find one of his father's many loaded guns and blow his own fucking brains out just to make it stop, he'd take the razor and run it almost lovingly through his flesh. The burst of physical pain and the warm spill of blood eased the ache he just couldn't bear inside. It was like when the skin opened up and the blood bloomed and ran down, it released all the pressure boiling inside him, and he could survive the night.

"It doesn't matter anymore." Hiding it didn't matter anymore. It would just be another scar, another mark, another wound. Nobody would ask. Nobody would care. Nobody was even around to fucking notice.

The glass bit into the flesh of his forearm with ease. Pain ricocheted up his arm and blossomed with a burning sting that was so familiar it was almost comforting. Blood leaked free and he watched with sick fascination as the scarlet fluid dripped down his tanned, leathery skin.

It hurt, but it felt good. It was an outward expression of an inward thing. The innards were always so hard to deal with. They were intangible, he couldn't pick them up and shatter them, he couldn't shove them into a box and lock it away so they couldn't hurt him anymore. He couldn't beat his feelings into a bloody pulp to make sure they couldn't get at him. They were made of nothing, and yet, they were going to destroy him.

Another flick of his wrist and the glass stroked his skin. Less than half an inch below the first wound, not far below the crook of his elbow, heading towards his wrist. The pain scorched through him again, but the edge was dulled, it wasn't as soothing as the first. A third line appeared, then a fourth, fifth, sixth, finally a seventh as he dug the glass so deep a significant watershed of blood began to gush down his arm. Searing pain roared through him now, blissfully blocking out everything else.

It felt _good_. It felt so good, it stopped the internal pressure, and he finally felt like he could breathe. The pain didn't stop and the blood just kept flowing, spilling down his arm and wrist, slicking his hand, dripping consistently into his palm and then onto the floor as he let his arm dangle off the side of his bed. It hurt to move it, and he finally let the glass drop. A tinkling sound chimed through his ears that he dully registered as it hit the floor.

"So this is it? You're going to throw it all away now? After all this time?"

He swiveled his head and dimly registered that it was Michonne hovering at the door to his cell.


End file.
